The UN Security Council hopes to vote this week on a French-drafted resolution that would boost the number of UN peacekeepers in the Congo to help avert a new war, council diplomats said.
The resolution was drafted by the French delegation in response to UN warnings that recent fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had forced a quarter of a million people to flee for their lives.
The requested increase in the size of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo, known by its French acronym MONUC, was based on a recommendation for a troop "surge" from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month.
The draft resolution has the council approving "a temporary increase of the mission's authorised military strength by up to 2,785 military personnel, and the strength of its formed police unit by up to 300 personnel."
The increase would bring the maximum permitted number of troops and police deployed under MONUC, already the biggest UN peacekeeping force in the world, to just over 20,000 to cover a country roughly the size of western Europe.
The resolution called on the mission to use the extra troops to protect civilians and urged it to follow "robust rules of engagement" in the field.
Diplomats said they wanted the council to vote on the resolution as soon as possible and described the situation in Congo as urgent.
The French text, which Britain, the United States and Belgium helped prepare, may undergo revisions before it is put to a vote in the 15-nation council, diplomats said.
South Africa has voiced concerns about plans to increase the number of peacekeepers in Congo without adjusting the UN mission's mandate.
In the DRC, President Joseph Kabila has replaced the head of his armed forces, a move aimed at bolstering their fighting capacity after a string of defeats during weeks of battles against eastern rebels, officials said today.
Mr Kabila's army has been repeatedly routed in east Democratic Republic of Congo by Tutsi rebel fighters led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda.
The violence in North Kivu province has displaced 250,000 people since the end of August, causing a humanitarian emergency and threatening a wider war.
Human rights groups have accused the rebels of committing war crimes and say retreating, ill-disciplined government soldiers have also looted, killed and raped.
Reuters